This is one of the larger persisting issues in cycling in need of a solution even more than we need non-flattening tires. The dismount, the moment / phase when the cyclist leaves the bike and comes to a stop.

Cycling is an activity of velocity, motion. There are times when your finding your way through roads and traffic and, really, as you swoop left, swerve right you feel birdlike.  On occasion with the wind at your back on a good day you grind out miles and it would not surprise you to look down and see that your tires are not actually touching the ground.

The problem is that when bikers are not biking its almost undignified. At the end of a ride one simply decelerates, the excitement is gone and after stopping lifts the leg as a dog at a fire hydrant to dismount and walks to some functional post or sign sunk into cement so that your bike doesn't get stolen when you go indoors.  For all the excitement that is cycling the dismount is a terrible let down, coming to earth and a decline in experience that is dramatic.

But think of other activities; gymnastics are all about 'sticking the landing', careers are made by gymnasts with a couple good dart-into-the-dartboard type dismounts, diving has the entry into the water and its excessive focus on the minimal splash, skating has all the landings and really what is the most beautiful 'triple salchow' if you stumble the landing and watch a career tumble across the ice?

Biking needs a dismount - something that turns this humbling activity into an art form. Ideally something involving flipping, spinning, and inverting. Kids doing skids or slides in a parking garage is a try but doesn't really cover it.  And really, with all the velocity and momentum a cyclist has going there is the building blocks of something impressive.

There should be an sport/competition where all the momentum and velocity that cyclists build up can be converted into vertical distance. Those among us who are brave enough should be able to convert speed to torque, reach to the heavens and become twisting acrobats of the air as few others can even begin to imagine. Indeed with the right practice we could become as angles, soaring into the heavens, figuratively and literally.